The history of Indian science fiction | Hacker News Reader

The history of Indian science fiction

altermag.com

224 pointsadityaathalye40 comments

"the sultana's dream" is online, and well worth a read: https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/sultana/dream/dream....

Thanks for the link! I read it earlier today and, wow, she was hard sci-fi, as of the early 1900s. I want to call out two things (water harvesting, energy use), but further details will be spoilers.

I reckon she also presaged some of the demographic / cultural re-workings we are experiencing in the 21st century. Hers was a time of radical social reform and political turmoil in the Indian subcontinent, as well as the world. I suppose many urban intellectuals as well as revolutionaries in the hinterland felt a palpable sense of "hang on, this <insert huge transformation> could actually happen, and we could make it happen".

Fertile ground for all sorts of literary imagination.

Added all of these to my Goodreads -- as an Indian, I had no idea that these books existed. Great article (with some really cool UI choices); I'm looking forward to reading more from this magazine! Thanks for sharing.

She is also read well in Bangladesh because she wrote primarily in Bengali. Infact she was well versed in quite a few languages. Her Sultana's Dream is a little over the top though

And also because she was from what is now Bangladesh. Same with Bose from this list.

That's true. Bose is also the source of Marconi's radio component and he developed junction based electronics way before it's time. Bose was quite fiercely anti-patent. Marconi patented the coherer in his name.

It is only recently that Bose's contributions in radio and electronics are being acknowledged (colonialism doing what it does) although these were quite well known in Bengal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose#Microwav...

I can second the article's recommendation of Samit Basu, I've liked everything of his I've read. I would also recommend Indra Das, and Saad Z. Hossain.

Ditto... several titles they listed were alien to me! And I had no idea about Rokeya.

Alas, these will have to wait a bit until my next book-funding cycle... I accidentally overdid some Diwali discount book shopping and have a slushpile of about forty scifi titles to work through, and a fiscal deficit to repair :sweat-smile: :D

That said, my extant slushpile has Sci-Fi by contemporary Indian / Indian-origin authors...

Lavanya Lakshminarayan's Interstellar Megachef (next up in the reading Q, along with the Strugatsky brothers).

And SB Divya's books:

  Read and enjoyed and will recommend:
  - Meru (very cool embodiment of beings, mythologically-inspired)

  To-read:
  - Loka
  - Machinehood
  - Contingency plans for the apocalypse

The articles references articles she has written on science fiction, but if one is interested in SFF more broadly, Monidipa "Mimi" Mondal is India's first Hugo nominee, as he co-editor of Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler, an anthology of letters and essays. This won a Locus award.

Her fantasy novella, "His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light" was nominated for a Nebula. She also contributed a DnD adventure to "Journeys through the Radiant Citadel"

Not a profilic author, but a strong one.

Hey thanks, will check her works out. I am more into scifi than fantasy, especially hard sci-fi.

A surprisingly missing entry is Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh. It's oddly good, and is very unique.

The writer talks at length about Bengali SciFi, but misses Ghana Da! The novels and stories are really enjoyable mixture of SF and pulp. Two collections are there in Eglish: The adventures of Ghanada, and Mosquito and Other stories. They are by the author Premendra Mitra/Mitter.

Probably worth drawing this thread's attention to the debate over whether ancient Hindu texts mention nuclear weapons and atomic war. Up to the beholder whether that makes those texts sci-fi or not, I guess.

I’d say that’s more fantasy than science fiction.

Every great culture, over the millennia has imagined great weapons and unlimited godlike destructive power. You could, as you are doing now, retrofit our narrative on any of those if you wish. Make your own sci-fi fantasy. Those texts are not.

Example:

Gotham Chopra did that with what is now Virgin Comics: https://liquidcomics.com/

See the gorgeous Ramayan 3392 A.D. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayan_3392_A.D.

Also see the film Cargo, which turns mythological narrative into a rather watchable space opera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_(2019_film)

It's true that ancient Indians had some interesting insights into astronomy and natural sciences (recognizing the heliocentricity as early as the aitareya BrAhmaNa, and some ideas about electricity) and have some evidence about Indo-Aryan warfare being evolved with variety of weapons.

But it would sound like boomer uncles to claim that there is mention of space travel or nuclear weapons in our epics. The astra-s are simply figments of imagination.

And yet people do haha

I was just bringing up something I thought was tangentially related without expressing an opinion on it

Don't. Please.

> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Your original comment checks all three boxes.

This is an interesting article but unfortunately there's some brigading of this thread by new accounts that's leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah, same here. I submitted the article and I'm unhappy about said briganding.

To all these new accounts: Please read the HN guidelines and follow them https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Keep it classy, folks.

[stub]

Very interesting visual effect in the first sections of the article

Seems like it's the first article of this magazine. I'd be excited to see what else they work on but I don't see any links to an rss feed :(

here's a list of future articles we are looking to commission btw: https://altermag.com/pitch-us

Hi @culi, Quick update, our RSS feed is now live :3 Subscribe here: https://altermag.com/rss.xml

Wow, that's awesome! Thanks for getting back on this and thanks for the awesome work

Bookmarked to read tonight, thanks for this -- the site is gorgeous.

What a beautiful site.

Should we not start with Ramayana and Mahabartham? Although they are religious texts they had a lot of science fiction storylines.

More mythological than science fiction.

this looks like India's answer to Works In Progress

They reference Works in Progress in their "pitch us" page: https://altermag.com/pitch-us

Though I wouldn't say "India's answer to..." that's just lazy hyperbole. Give the magazine's makers credit, not some arbitrary national identity.

Works In Progress is a Stripe production. Alter Magazine is a production by a parent company "Alt Carbon". That's the similarity.

Gorgeous essay. Less a story and more a museum tour of Indian Sci-Fi. Enjoyed it!

All the hard work put into this piece really shows! It’s just fascinating.

What a beautifully designed and insightful piece!

there's limited mention of satyajit ray and his feud with spielberg a la Aliens. would have been fun to read about it-- https://harpercollins.co.in/product/embark-on-an-intergalact...

what an enlightening and inspiring deep-dive that celebrates the bold emergence and evolution of Indian science fiction.

Loved the article!

Heyo, Great article. Gautam Bhatia is a great science fiction writer himself.

it wouldn't be a thread about India without a massive brigading / bot campaign!

Well yes I have read Zelazny's Lord of Light, how did you like it? /s

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